Upgraded IRCTC website grabbing eyeballs: Officials

Within a week of its launch, the IRCTC's upgraded website has started grabbing eyeballs with a 12-per cent increase in the number of page views and a 37-per cent improvement in its response time, officials said on Tuesday.

The upgraded e-ticketing website and mobile application have user-personalisation features linked to user log-in, along with facilities for customisation, one-stop train selection for booking and integrated booking for meals and accommodation with tickets.

The website was launched by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who had said it was a gift to the nation on the New Year.

"The website was launched on December 31 and in less than a week, there is a 37-per cent improvement in the response time of the ticketing website to its users.

"This is despite a 12-per cent higher page views by users, which is attributed to the additional features included in the upgraded website," an official said.

He also said the upgraded website has reduced the number of clicks for the customer while checking availability of tickets by providing all the information on one page.

"The upgraded website has resulted in the elimination of the need of about 20 clicks for checking availability per ticket booking. Earlier, train seat availability and fares could be seen only after clicking on that train individually. This was about 20 additional clicks per ticket booking. Each click used to fetch data from the system and thus, put extra load on it. The upgraded system stores and displays all information about availability of tickets and fares for all trains on the train search page," the official said.

At present, the e-ticketing website of the IRCTC has more than six crore active users who use it to book more than eight lakh tickets daily. Around 83 per cent of the total reserved railway tickets are booked through the website.

"Since 2014, there has been a paradigm shift in the development of the railways. The Indian Railway is getting future ready. The IRCTC website is one such step in that direction. The commitment of the railways to further improving the services is unflinching," DJ Narain, Spokesperson, Indian Railways, said.